The next workshop will be May 19-24, 2008 (the week before Memorial Day). Please stay tuned . . .
photos by George Johnson
We are continuing to take applications for the 12th annual Santa Fe
Science Writing Workshop, which will begin Monday evening, May 28,
2007, and run through Saturday morning, June 2, at Ghost Ranch Santa Fe
(formerly Plaza Resolana) in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. The workshop is directed by:
Sandra Blakeslee, a New York Times science writer and the author, with V. S. Ramachandran, of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind and numerous other books, and
George Johnson, a New York Times science writer, whose books include Miss Leavitt's Stars, Fire in the Mind, and In the Palaces of Memory.
This year's lineup will also include John Horgan, a former editor and writer for Scientific American, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and the author of four books including The End of Science and The Undiscovered Mind;
Charles Petit, a former science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and U.S. News and World Report who now surveys the scene from his position at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker;
and Peter Lewis, whose many positions have included senior editor and technology columnist for Fortune magazine and assistant science editor for the New York Times.
In addition, David Corcoran, deputy science editor of the New York Times plans to join us, and Michelle Nijhuis and Christie Aschwanden will conduct a special session on freelancing. Please see latest updates for details.
Please bookmark this page and check back regularly for updates.
Read about last year's workshop.
Pictures from 2003 by Peter West.
Previous workshops have each attracted about 45 students from all over the country (and a few from Japan, Canada, France, Britain, and Kenya). Some were working science writers who wanted to hone their skills and meet more of their colleagues. Some were writers from other fields hoping to make the switch to science writing. Some were public information specialists from universities and government laboratories. And some were scientists who wondered if they might like writing more than research.
Past instructors have included
Tim Appenzeller, science editor for National Geographic; Shankar Vedantam, a national correspondent writing about science and human behavior for the Washington Post; Judy Foreman, a nationally syndicated health columnist whose work appears in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers; Denise Grady, health and medicine reporter for the New York Times; Michael Lemonick, senior science writer for Time magazine and author of The Light at the Edge of the Universe; Joe Palca, senior science correspondent for National Public Radio; Laura Chang, science editor of the New York Times; Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for the New York Times, covering chemistry, geology, solid state physics, nanotechnology, and other topics; Glennda Chui, science writer for the San Jose Mercury News; Peter Petre, senior editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, overseeing coverage of infotech, biotech, medicine, industrial technology, and science; Keay Davidson, science writer for The San Francisco Chronicle and author of Carl Sagan: A Life; Erica Goode, behavioral science writer for The New York Times; Margaret Wertheim, author of The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace and a freelance science writer for numerous publications like New Scientist, Salon, and The Sciences; Robin Marantz Henig, a freelance magazine writer specializing in the life sciences and the author of The Monk in the Garden; Rosie Mestel, a medical writer and columnist for The Los Angeles Times; Andrew Revkin, environmental writer for The New York Times and author of The Burning Season; Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and University of Wisconsin journalism professor; Shannon Brownlee, a former senior writer at U.S. News & World Report; Philip Elmer-DeWitt, assistant managing editor in charge of science, medicine, and technology coverage for Time magazine; Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, chief medical correspondent for The New York Times; K.C. Cole of The Los Angeles Times; Pulitzer-prize-winner John Noble Wilford of the The New York Times; Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter for Newsday; Richard Harris, Peabody-Award-winning science reporter for National Public Radio; Dennis Overbye, deputy science editor for The New York Times and author of Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos; Rick Weiss, science writer for The Washington Post; Natalie Angier, science correspondent for The New York Times and winner of the Pulitzer prize; Jon Franklin, two-time Pulitzer prize winner and professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon; Paul Hoffman, former editor-in-chief of Discover magazine; Cornelia Dean, science editor of The New York Times; and Timothy Ferris, author of The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe(s) Report and Coming of Age in the Milky Way.
Please burrow into our Web site and see what we did in 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, and 1996. Ghost Ranch Santa Fe and The Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop are nonprofit organizations.
(The background image on our main page is from a Social Realist mural inside the administration building at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It was painted in the 1930s as part of the WPA or "New Deal" Art Project by an artist named Lloyd Moylan.)
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